Aleppo, unsurprisingly, appears to have been the experimental template for what is destined to occur in the rest of Syria, since the cleansing of the eastern portion of Syria's once-commercial hub with its ancient footprint in the Middle East appears now to have been completed with the final evacuation of its Sunni citizens and the rebel factions among them. Starved out, wounded, demoralized, traumatized as no match for a faltering, barbarian regime that found new life with the military benefaction of Vladimir Putin in his long-range plan for Russian authority in the Middle East.

The ancient city of Aleppo and its archaeological treasures in the eastern half may be pounded to rubble, its people scattered as desperate refugees from the punishing sectarian hatred of its tyrant, but Bashar al-Assad exults in his victory, on the conquest he accomplished, thanks to the steadfastness in sectarian detestation of Shiite Islam over Sunni Islam exemplified by Iran's al-Quds division of its Republican Guard and its Lebanese Hezbollah militias dedicated to smashing the Syrian Sunni rebellion.

The barrel bombs and deprivation of basic necessities of human survival denied to Sunni civilians in east Aleppo demonstrated the success of such techniques in degrading existence for the besieged beyond human tolerance. And since the presence of rebellion is also present in Damascus what better place to continue the onslaught than towns close by the capital city? These strikes are reportedly aimed at Fateh al-Sham, known previously as Jabhat al-Nusra, as a routing technique.

But they are among 100,000 civilians lacking water and electricity, under attack from both the Islamists and the regime. Regime authorities cut off water supplies into some of the neighbourhoods of Damascus citing the rebels' having poisoned water resources. A regime that sees no barriers to its use of grotesque assault methodology against its civilian population would have no hesitation in ascribing to its opponents lethal conspiracies that they themselves might entertain.

The Damascus water authority issued an explanatory statement that supplies of potable water were cut in the wake of "terrorist attacks on all water resources feeding into Damascus and its surroundings", while they themselves are responsible for denying access to water by those whose need cannot be denied, but is. While 1.5 million people live within the city of Damascus, its suburbs hold an additional 3.5 million.

Vital resources civilization counts upon to provide the basic necessities of life are understandably under threat during conditions of warfare, but the denial of such necessities to those dependent on them have become a specialty of the Shiite Baathist government of President al-Assad as a historically tried-and-true strategy found useful during the Medieval era, thoughtfully resurrected courtesy of present-day Islamist societies.

The valley of the Wadi Barada has been under a state of siege for years. Food, water and electricity have all been elusive, deliberately withheld. As a technique to bring people to their knees nothing works as well as withholding food and water, and the Syrian regime can attest to its success. The heartless war waged by al-Assad against his majority-Sunni population reflects adequately his contempt for the majority sect.

And his malevolently deadly reaction to his own civilians' criticism for the unequal administration of his regime's oppressive institutionalized practices is justified in the defence offered by the Russian defence ministry citing the ostensible finding of its troops, of bodies of several dozen Syrians "who suffered atrocious torture and massacre" including mutilation and gunshot wounds.

Weigh those claims against the Islamist militias whose jihad-inspired terrorism still is incapable of notching up as many civilian deaths as can be achieved through the methodology and military machine of the government of Syria, through imprisonment, torture and deaths, chemical weapons attacks, and helicopter gunships strafing civilian enclaves, bombing hospitals and schools, mosques and apartment buildings, destroying towns and cities and their inhabitants with barrel bomb attacks.